Recently, I stumbled upon what appeared to be a very succinct description of Pragmatist philosophy (or what I like to call “the Pragmatist unbelief system”). In fact, Bob pragmatic play Sherman’s article provides a nice summary of the core concepts of the pragmatist movement. He does what appears at first sight to be an admirable job of explaining the relation of pragmatism to “statements of truth”, emphasizing that pragmatists define the truth of a particular statement as a) not taking an absolute position and b) on the basis of the usefulness of that Suggestion.

The article is worth reading if you want to understand how “character education” advocates view pragmatism. It doesn’t take long to realize that while Mr. Sherman gets some of this right, he has fundamentally misunderstood the implications of pragmatic reasoning. His mischaracterization is not uncommon. I thought I might take the opportunity to clarify what the pragmatist system of thought actually is and how it affects the field of social and economic policy.

The main difficulty Mr. Sherman encounters is a common one – equating pragmatism with instrumental reason, which is itself associated with relativism (the belief that every life choice is as good as any other), subjectivism (morality is not). based on reason, but individual choices to limit behavior for no other reason than we want) and the pursuit of authenticity. Mr. Sherman points to American companies’ emphasis on maximizing profits as an example of pragmatism in action:

“Anytime you see business leaders, politicians or other social leaders emphasize their vision for the future, they focus on outcomes or consequences. If they do not emphasize objective moral standards to help them determine their means of attaining those desired ends, they are likely adherents of the philosophy of pragmatism. For example, companies looking to improve profitability might try to ignore worker loyalty and health and safety standards. This is characteristic of many companies moving high-paying manufacturing jobs from the United States to Mexico. Northern Mexico is home to numerous US companies for which profits are most important.”

This argument is unique in one respect – although it comes from a proponent of the religious conservative character education movement, it suggests that the market is not always fair (what has conservatism become?). Let’s leave that aside and just go over the implications of the example given. Is American pragmatism, at its core, a self-centered ideology in which even the most callous and callous politics can be justified as beneficial at some level (individual or organizational)? Is it a system that focuses our attention on instant gratification regardless of larger consequences?

I doubt it.

Instrumental reason is the belief that every decision should benefit one’s narrow self-interest. According to this definition, the satisfaction of one’s desires (low and high) is the primary good, and other people exist simply as tools to attain those ends. Thus, someone who encourages instrumental thinking will interpret things like marriage vows (“I’ll take you in sickness and in health, in good times and bad”) to their own benefit (“I’ll take you mine as long as that’s good for me “). Niccolo Machiavelli gave us an early example of instrumental reason with his piece Mandragola.

Contrary to the British version of Machiavellianism, in this play all goes well as long as everyone pursues their own narrow-minded self-interest and uses others as tools to achieve that selfish end. While the play proposes an ideal philosophy for governing personal relationships (as well as political ones), it also shows how personal relationships become narrowed and weakened when they serve only the purpose of achieving a self-interested goal.

At first glance, the consideration of results suggests the basis for a purely instrumental calculation. For example, on the surface it seems pragmatic to ask whether an action will result in the greatest personal benefit, and if the behavior does not, to adjust one’s behavior so that what is produced achieves the goal.

That’s not pragmatism.

At its core, pragmatism is based on the idea that every belief (or disbelief) requires justification – since life is characterized by adaptation to changing circumstances, our decisions must be based on a careful evaluation of the results achieved. In contrast, instrumental reason supports the idea that no choice is based on reason – people should not be required to justify life choices with standards of reason, good or bad, or any moral principles – to do so could undermine their sense of an authentic self distort by subjecting them to external standards (which are believed to be inherently arbitrary). As Charles Taylor puts it, those who are reasonable support the idea that . . .

“Everyone has the right to develop their own way of life based on their own sense of what is truly important or valuable. People are asked to remain true to themselves and to seek their own self-realization. This is what it is, everyone must ultimately decide for themselves. Nobody else can or should try to dictate its content.” [1]

Therefore, the only moral foundations for instrumental reason are the axiomatic beliefs that human beings can only be fully human when they act in full self-interest, and that no one should be required to vigorously defend a life choice.

However, this is not a sufficient explanation of choice for a pragmatist, because we cannot be sure that acting out of pure self-actualization will always lead to full humanity, i.e. fully developed human character, or any other measure of success (I believe that it’s natural for pragmatism to question whether that kind of selfish “authenticity” is the only important goal). So the difference between pragmatism and instrumental reason revolves around what the process is to determine what is “true.” As we have seen, instrumental reason is simply another form of axiomatic reasoning in which core tenets of the faith remain unchallenged.

There are two reasons why any good pragmatist should be ashamed of the idea that we can achieve full human potential by using others as a means to reach the goal of self-actualization. First, reasoning is instrumental in violating the idea that beliefs require justification—the idea that no one should be required to justify choices clearly precludes any inquiry into whether a choice or belief is useful at all times. Second, “true” beliefs are those that are ultimately accepted as the result of painstaking and careful investigation by the widest possible community of honest researchers.

Instrumental reason negates the possibility of creating such a community, bound by the pursuit of careful inquiry and flexible enough to abandon the narrowest of beliefs when circumstances warrant. This is because fellowship or dialogue with others is unnecessary to achieve the goal of fully developed human character, or (even worse, as mentioned above) can subject those who argue instrumentally to external scrutiny.

Oliver W. Holmes gives an example of the difference between instrumental and pragmatic thinking. In the South, most pre-Civil War slave owners would argue that the slave culture of the South brought significant benefits, particularly to them, but also to the nation through the production of goods for which a slave culture was said to be ideally suited. In other words, the cost of enslaving a race of humans was more than outweighed by the economic benefits to the nation. Slavery was a means of achieving national economic excellence. How could Holmes take reasonable and pragmatic action against the institution of slavery? Nonetheless, Holmes supported the abolitionist movement (initially for moral reasons) and dropped out of Harvard University before graduating to accept a commission in the Union Army. Was he unreasonable?

Holmes returned from the Civil War convinced that reasoning based on results might offer a better chance of averting catastrophic events like war than reasoning based on established, supposedly universal principles ever could. Furthermore, anyone applying that standard (if you can call it that) would of course agree that maintaining the institution of slavery was bad. And they would come to that conclusion not based on moral considerations, but by looking at the results. Aside from the ravages of the Civil War, slavery caused significant social and legal turmoil in the states.

Furthermore, it was never clear that slave culture was the only, or even the best, method the South could employ to contribute to economic advancement. Holmes recognized that if a society is to employ the most violent methods of settling social policy disputes, it should fail to ทางเข้า pragmatic play undertake careful and rigorous investigation, not to abandon long-held beliefs when they are found to be harmful, and to Axiomatics always thinking. On all sides of the argument, Holmes found those who fit that bill (let’s not forget the abolitionist rampages).